


I'll Be the Blood

by glorious_spoon



Series: Wolves Without Teeth [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Derek, M/M, Mates, Rescue, Rituals, Spells & Enchantments, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-04-30 21:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14505486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Derek is captured by witches out in the desert. There's no reason Stiles should know where to find him, but somehow he does anyway.Of course,findinghim turns out to be the least of their worries...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [I'll Be the Blood (Traducción)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15286305) by [Igni1LB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Igni1LB/pseuds/Igni1LB)



> This is a companion piece to [The Butcher and the Beast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14453127), but it's not really necessary to read that first.
> 
> Title from 'Wolves Without Teeth' by Of Monsters and Men.
> 
> Spanish translation courtesy of [Igni1LB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Igni1LB/pseuds/Igni1LB) available on [Wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/story/148134513-i%27ll-be-the-blood-traducci%C3%B3n).

 

* * *

 

He’s in his wolf-shape when they catch up to him, and that’s probably the only reason he survives the first assault. There are at least a dozen of them, and the wolfsbane blades singe his fur and burn his skin, mountain ash trapping him inside a blind canyon with walls too steep to climb even if he risked shifting back.

“Little beta,” one of them hisses, face cracking into a smile that’s wrong, wrong, _wrong_ even to the wolf’s less sensitive visual perception. Bleeding lips and needled teeth beneath mercury-bright eyes like blank coins. “What a disappointment.”

“Should we kill him?” another asks, lifting her blade. Derek snarls, lips peeling back from his teeth, but he’s tired and bleeding and all he can really hope to do is take some of them down with him. He knows that, knows that fighting is just going to prolong an inevitable, painful death, but that doesn’t change anything. It’s not in his nature to surrender. Not to things like this.

The first witch, the leader, tilts his head, moving like a clockwork monster than has slipped some essential gear. “No,” he decides finally. His smile widens a few degrees past what should be possible, like his whole head might split open to swallow a person whole. “No. He’s not an alpha, but he was once. He’s strong. He’ll make an adequate sacrifice.” He sniffs the air, his eyes glittering. “And he has a mate. A _human_ mate. Unbonded. Ah, I take it back. He’ll make an _ideal_ sacrifice.”

No. Oh, no.

Derek lunges, snarling, but the witch lifts a hand and he’s flung back into the stone wall with punishing force. He stumbles back to his feet, ears ringing, and staggers forward, muzzle hanging to the ground. The witch crouches down, an obscene parody of a man playing fetch with a beloved dog, and grins at him. “You haven’t touched him, have you? I suppose you thought you were protecting him. But the bond is still there. He’ll be able to find you. And when he does—”

His teeth snap shut like steel traps. His eyes gleam.

Derek takes another staggering step forward, and then one of the others flings a gloved hand up and his world goes suddenly black.

He doesn’t remember hitting the ground.

* * *

He’s human when he wakes up. Human and cold and naked, chained wrist and ankle to a wall. The chains are too short for him to sit down, so he’s sagging against them, a deep grinding ache in both shoulders and a tightness in his chest like he hasn’t taken a full breath in far too long. He gasps, gagging on the taste of wolfsbane, and forces himself to stand.

The room beyond is empty. He’s alone.

It probably says something about his life that this is not actually the worst way he’s woken up. There are no electrodes puncturing his skin and nothing in his immediate vicinity is trying to kill him. So, yeah. He’s had worse.

He barely has time to complete that thought before the door at the far end of the cell swings open and a witch steps through. It’s not the leader from earlier; this one is a woman, small and soft-looking, with a sweet round face and cold, glittering eyes. She’s carrying a stone pot in one hand, uncapped so that he can smell the acrid stink of the contents. Wolfsbane and ashes and blood, and some cold rotting stench that itches at his nose. He recoils, crushing his body back against the wall. Bares his teeth in a snarl, but it’s fear that has his heart speeding, a deep, atavistic fear, and she smiles like she knows that.

There’s another set of footsteps, and another witch approaches behind her. A man, by the height, his face masked, hands gloved, so swathed in poison-soaked cloth that he barely smells human. The woman glances back at him, imperious. “Turn him. We’re short on time.”

Derek snarls when the man approaches, teeth lengthening, but he can’t get enough leverage to back it up, can’t do anything but twist helplessly when hard hands grip his shoulders and spin him to face the wall with inhuman strength, pinning him easily. His cheek connects hard with the stone, his hands twisted awkwardly in the chains, and it’s even worse like this. He feels helpless like this, exposed in a way that has nothing to do with his nudity.

“Are you sure?” the man asks. “He doesn’t seem so strong.”

“We’re sure,” the woman retorts, cold and indifferent. “Hold him still.”

The stink gets worse as she approaches. Derek jerks, claws digging furrows into the dry sandstone, yanking as hard as he can at the manacles, and the man slams his head into the wall hard enough to make his vision go white. Hard enough to make it clear that if he felt like it, he could crush Derek’s skull.

“Hold still,” he hisses. “Or we’ll find another sacrifice.”

Derek snaps at his fingers, but it’s futile. There are icy fingers on him, the scrape of manicured nails and the cold slickness of whatever’s in the pot she’s carrying. The smell of it is overwhelming, gag-inducing, but she doesn’t seem bothered by the shudders he can feel rolling over his skin. She’s painting something on him, lines of symbols that he can’t recognize by feel, and her movements are quick and sure.

“What are you doing to me,” he growls, low.

He’s not expecting an answer, not really, but she clicks her tongue against her teeth and says, “We’re not stupid to try to contain both a werewolf and a human with the spark. Certainly not a wolf pack. We’ll be gone by the time your mate finds you.”

“I don’t have a mate.”

“You haven’t confirmed the bond,” she corrects, sounding amused. “Perhaps you haven’t told him? I suppose this sort of thing is hard to explain to humans.”

Derek turns his face to the cool stone, doesn’t answer. It’s true that he’s never told Stiles that there’s a bond, or at least the potential of it, but that doesn’t mean that Stiles doesn’t _know._ Stiles knows a lot of things he has no business knowing, and he usually doesn’t have to be told.

“Either way, he’ll be able to find you,” she continues, dipping her fingers into the pot again and painting some kind of complicated swirl over his right shoulder. The liquid is slick, faintly oily, and it doesn’t warm to his skin. The symbols she’s already drawn feel like lines of ice. “And you’re going to kill him for us.”

Derek laughs at that, raw and stretched thin, and he isn’t at all surprised by the backhand that slams him back against the wall.

“Something funny?” she asks sweetly.

“There have got to be easier ways to kill off one human teenager,” Derek rasps. “You could just shove him into traffic. God knows I’ve considered it.”

“Maybe we would,” she says. “If killing him was the point.”

Her nails digs in on the next stroke. They’re blunt and human, but something about it makes him want to scream anyway. He sucks in a breath, then says, “So what’s the point?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she says lightly. “He’ll die. So will you. But it’s not the destination that’s important— are you familiar with the saying? It’s not the destination that’s important, it’s the journey. The proper kind of death, in this place…” She leans forward, hot breath against his shoulder, and he can hear her heart pounding too fast. She’s enjoying this. “Well, that’s the kind of power that we just can’t resist.”

“I’m not going to hurt him. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

She chuckles in his ear, her cold, slippery fingers dragging up his sides in a mockery of a caress. “Oh, sweetheart. You won’t have a choice.”

Then she steps back, suddenly businesslike again as she addresses her companion. “It’s done.”

Derek tries to yank back against the chains again, but all he gets for his trouble is those too-strong hands slamming his head into the wall hard enough to make the world go dark. He reels, dizzy and sick, untwisting from the chains in time to see the two of them make their way through the doorway. Then the door slams shut, leaving him alone in the darkness.

It should be a relief. It isn’t.

He can’t see what she painted on him, and even if he could, he’s no Deaton; his grasp of ritual magic is sketchy at best. He’s a wolf, not a witch; the only magic that’s ever mattered to him is sunk into his bones and flesh. He’s never needed to know about the tricks humans use to twist reality.

That’s starting to look like a serious oversight now. The symbols burn into his skin with a cold fire. Right now they don’t seem to be doing anything more than that, but she seemed way too pleased, too confident, for him to hope that the spell was a failure. It’s working. Whatever she did, it’s going to work.

He finds himself actually hoping that Stiles doesn’t manage to find him in time.

It’s a futile hope, though. They’re not really in regular contact these days, but Stiles knows he’s back in town, will be expecting him to show up at some point, is way too goddamn nosy to let it go when he doesn’t. And he’s always had a habit of turning up whenever Derek is in trouble. It’s a useful habit, and that’s one of the reasons that Derek has never let himself think about it much. About how Stiles always just _knows_.

There are other reasons, too, of course. Hopefully, this once— just this once— Stiles will have the goddamn common sense to stay put and mind his own business.

* * *

Stiles isn’t quite sure what wakes him. He’s always been a restless sleeper, prone to nightmares, and these days he rarely goes a week without waking up with his teeth clenched against a scream, phantom demons in his field of vision. It was better when he was still with Malia and she slept over most nights; his heartbeat usually roused her before he could make a sound, and half the time he’d wake to her pressing him down into the mattress, warm and close and distracting in all the best ways. She never tried to make him talk about it, and that was a gift all on its own. Not like there was anything to say. They both knew what he dreamed about.

But he’s alone now, tangled in the sheets, a layer of cold sweat on his skin. The clock reads 4:43 AM and a grayish dawn is just starting to seep through the blinds. His heart is racing. He can’t remember the dream, but there’s still something—

— _taste/feel/sound, the memory of a body, familiar and close, a brittle fear that’s not his own_ —

Stiles rolls to turn on the bedside lamp, then pulls himself upright, blinking in the sudden light, chasing the memory.

It’s a _sense_ more than anything, not of a place but of a person. Too-hot skin and heavy limbs, the smell of smoke and a humming tension, as familiar as his own reflection even after all this time. It’s been almost a year since it’s been this close, and he knows that if he reaches out, just a little, he could follow the thread back to its source.

God damn it.

He sighs, shoves a hand through his hair, and reaches for his phone.

“Scott?” he says when the bleary, sleep-clogged voice on the other end of the line picks up. “Hey, buddy, get your ass out of bed. We’ve got a problem. Derek’s been captured.”


	2. Chapter 2

Scott gets there when Stiles is still leaning under the hood of the Jeep, swearing softly under his breath at the alternator, and he’s not alone. Liam is trailing in his wake, looking bleary-eyed and tousled, his t-shirt wrinkled. There’s a duffel bag over his shoulder. He gives a sheepish little wave when Stiles stares at him.

Stiles turns his stare on Scott. “What, we’re bringing the junior squad, too?”

“He was already at my house and he asked to come,” Scott says, mild but completely unapologetic. “I thought we might need the help.”

“Great.” Stiles ducks back under the hood. “That’s just great. He can load up the Jeep. Make himself useful.”

“I’m useful,” Liam says, sounding offended. “I’m stronger than you are.”

“But not smarter.” He gives the wrench a final yank and slams the hood back down. “Obviously. Or you wouldn’t be here.”

“This is _your_ plan.”

“Don’t remind me,” he mutters, and gestures at the gas cans. Three of them, because the last thing they need is to run out in the middle of the desert, _again_. “Load her up. We have a long drive.”

“Do you actually know where you’re going?” Scott asks, circling around the back to heave his bag in.

“Yep,” Stiles says shortly, and stomps back into the house to grab his own bag before Scott can ask him anything else.

* * *

Of course, that only lasts as long as it takes to get them out on the highway, driving east. In the backseat, Liam is fiddling with something on his phone. Scott glances back at him, pulls out his own phone to check it, and then raises his eyebrows at Stiles. Too late, he realizes his mistake. He hasn’t even taken his phone out to check the map. Hasn’t needed to. Derek didn’t take this route out of town, but he still knows where he’s headed, although they may need to do some off-roading, depending on how close the highway gets. They can worry about that when they get to it.

“So,” Scott says again. “You know where you’re going.”

“Yeah, there’s an old monastery out in the desert.” Stiles waves a hand vaguely in the direction they’re heading. “That way. That’s where they’re keeping him.”

“You looked into it before I got there?” Scott asks, like he actually thinks Stiles is going to try to pull a lie that blatant. Like he’d even let him get away with it, when it took all of ten minutes between the phone call and Scott pulling into his driveway.

Scott has been letting him get away with a lot lately. It would be more fun if it wasn’t just because he still feels guilty about everything with Theo. Stiles sighs. “No. Didn’t have time. But that’s where he is.”

“So was it—” Scott glances back at Liam and lowers his voice, like there’s any way he can speak quietly enough when there’s another werewolf sitting three feet away from him. At least Liam is polite enough to pretend he’s ignoring them. “Was it that thing?”

“What thing,” Stiles says flatly, without looking away from the road.

“You know what thing,” Scott says, still quiet. And then, “Man, I’m not going to make you talk about it, I just want to know if we’re working on a hunch or something more. That’s all.”

Stiles drums his fingers against the steering wheel, watching the road unspool in front of them toward a hot yellow dawn, the shadows of the mountains out ahead as sharp as if they were cut with a knife. He can feel Scott watching him, but he doesn’t look over. “It’s not a hunch,” he says eventually.

“Okay,” Scott says quietly. “Okay, Stiles.”

“Can we please drop it now?” Stiles asks, feeling slightly desperate, and right on cue Liam pipes up from the backseat.

“Hey, is there a gas station up ahead anywhere? I have to pee.”

His face is guileless, like he hasn’t been listening to a word they’ve been saying. If it wasn’t weird and gross and _weird_ , Stiles would kiss him. God bless teenage werewolves and their peanut-sized bladders for getting him out of awkward conversations.

* * *

For a long time, Derek drifts.

He’s cold, and he hurts everywhere, but it’s a distant thing, a suffocating numbness whenever he surfaces, easy to escape when he lets his mind sink back down into the darkness. He thinks— when he can think— that it’s a bad thing, that it’s so easy. That’s not who he is. That’s never been who he is. He always fights.

It’s _wrong_ , that it feels so easy now to let go. Unnatural.

No one comes to check on him and it’s impossible to tell the passage of time here in the darkness, so he doesn’t know if it’s hours or days later when he finally manages to break the surface of consciousness, gasping in the dry hot air like he’s been drowning.

A cold sweat is standing on his skin, and everything hurts. The stone wall is rough behind him, abrading the symbols on his back like they were burned there instead of just drawn. They don’t hurt, not really, but he can feel an internal instability that scares the hell out of him. Every time he tries to flex his hands, claws pierce his skin. He can’t keep them in. He can’t keep control of his _shape_ , and it’s like losing the ability to walk or speak, something that’s as much a part of him as his bones.

He can’t shift fully, either. Something in the symbols, or something in the chains, is keeping him human. That should be a good thing. He’s a lot more dangerous in his wolf-shape. Half-shifted and chained to a wall he’d barely be a threat to Stiles even alone, which Stiles won’t be if he shows up, but Derek can’t manage to feel relieved. He has a feeling that they know exactly what they’re doing, and this— all of this— is going exactly to plan.

He yanks against the chain on his left wrist without real intention, and hears something shift in the wall behind him.

Dry dirt falls around him, catching in his beard and itching at his eyes. He breathes in the taste of dust and _pulls_ with all his strength.

There’s a deep, tearing ache in his shoulders, the metal cuffs biting into his wrists. For several agonizing moments nothing happens, and then there’s a sound like thunder, like an avalanche, rolling and inevitable, and the wall comes crashing down on top of him.

It’s all crushing, suffocating darkness, and then the sharp edge of a stone smashes into his temple and he knows no more.

* * *

“That’s it,” Stiles says, slamming the Jeep into park almost before the wheels have stopped moving, spilling out onto the ground and stumbling into a run toward the decrepit-looking yellow stone building.

Behind him, the doors slam in quick succession. Two sets of footsteps on the hard-packed dirt, and then Scott’s strong hand on his shoulder, yanking him back. “Stiles!”

He tries to tear himself away, but it’s like trying to wrestle a bear trap, god damn Scott and his stupid werewolf strength. “Let go of me.”

“Think,” Scott says sharply. “We have no idea what’s in there.”

“ _Derek_ is in there,” Stiles snaps. He knows exactly how desperate he sounds. He just can’t make himself care right now. The thread is wound tight, stinging like it hasn’t since that night in Mexico when Derek gasped at them to _go_ through bloody lips, when Stiles turned his back and felt something inside him tear open. “That’s what I’m worried about right now.”

“Yeah, and what if he’s not alone, huh?” Scott asks, and lets go of his shoulder. “What if whoever took him is waiting for us, too? Come on, man. At least let me and Liam scope it out first.”

Stiles grits his teeth, but Scott is right, little as he wants to admit it. “Fine.”

“Okay,” Scott says. He grips Stiles’s shoulder again, gently this time, then lets go. “Liam, come on.”

“Uh,” Liam says. He’s peering over Scott’s shoulder at Stiles like he’s never seen him before, or possibly like he’s grown a second head. Stiles doesn’t know what his face is doing, but he feels kind of horribly exposed, especially when Liam says, tentatively, “Are you okay?”

“He’s fine,” Scott says before Stiles can snarl at him, all calm authority that would be a lot more impressive if Stiles didn’t know for a fact that he practices it in front of a mirror. Seems to work on Liam, though. “Let’s go.”

Liam glances at Stiles again, wide-eyed, then slumps after Scott. Stiles shoves his hands in his his pockets, curls them into fists as he watches the two werewolves approach the building. Watches them both tilt their heads in a way that means they’re scenting the air. After what feels like an eternity, Scott turns back to him. His face is pale.

“What,” Stiles says out loud, and breaks into a jog even though he knows Scott heard him. “ _What?_ ”

“He’s alone,” Scott says, and glances at Liam, who shakes his head, eyes wide. “He’s alone. He’s— there’s a lot of blood.”

Stiles shoves past him. “Then let’s _go_ already.”

* * *

There are hands on him. Warm hands, and a familiar scent. A familiar voice above his head. He leans into the touch, groans, and Stiles says, “Hey, Derek. We gotta stop meeting like this.”

He’s here. He’s really here, and his hands are warm and his voice sounds shaky and relieved, and Derek wants, so, so badly, for this to be a real rescue, but it’s not. It can’t be.

His blood feels thin and hot, racing like there’s a full moon looming in the sky. Worse, like there’s wolfsbane in his blood, like his mind is burning. Like if he stops concentrating for even a second he’ll claw the world to pieces.

He’s not going to be able to keep control. He’s still healing, but once he does—

“Go,” he rasps. “Go now.”

Stiles doesn’t go. Stiles leans down over him, his heart pounding, his hands shaking, and says, “Yeah, man, we’re going. Just as soon as we get you out of this— Scott, you wanna give me a hand here?”

There’s another wolf. Two other wolves. One of them, the alpha, moves closer, and Derek snarls.

The alpha freezes, radiating shock.

The alpha. _Scott._ Scott is frozen, a few paces back, his eyes huge. The other kid, his beta— Liam— is behind him. Stiles sits back on his heels, expression shifting rapidly from relief to concern to a hard, wary look that Derek knows too damn well. He has to know that this was too easy, and Stiles is not a person who will ever trust things that come easily.

“What?” he asks softly. “Derek, what is it?”

The words don’t want to come. His mind is fading, slipping in and out of focus. It’s so, so tempting to let go, but he has to tell them, he has to warn them, because whatever wakes up after this—

Whatever wakes up won’t be _Derek_ in any way that matters.

He manages to stumble through something resembling an explanation. Enough for Stiles to nod, his brown eyes turning sharp and calculating, and that’s… good. It’s good. Stiles is smart. He’s so goddamn smart. Even if Derek didn’t make any sense at all, he’ll figure it out. He’ll make sure they don’t let Derek out.

The wolf will batter itself to death on the stone, most likely, but that’s okay. If he dies, Stiles lives. All three of them live. The ritual fails. It’s a surprisingly simple equation, actually.

His mind is slipping, darkness crowding the edge of his vision, obscuring Stiles’s face from view. A staticky buzz in his ears.

He’s, he feels, he’s—

Gone.

* * *

 _The wolf wakes. The shape he wears is human, or close enough, but inside him is nothing but hunger and need_. _Sharp claws and burning eyes. He stretches, lips pulling back from his aching teeth, and scents the air. There’s blood and fear-sweat, the smell of other wolves, the acrid stink of poison. Over all that, though, is something sharp and sweet and warm, thin-skinned and human, heartbeat pounding rabbit-quick._

_“Derek, hey, Derek,” and there’s a hand on his skin, two hands on his skin and his nose is full of the rich smell of fresh blood. “Hey. Are you with me?”_

_Mate. He breathes in the scent, lip curling at the sharp undercurrent of fear, pain, blood. Mate. Lean and pale and strong, all sinew and bone, but human. So human. He leans forward, pushes his face into the curve of a throat, breathes in, opening his mouth against the hot skin there. Feels the fear-scent spike at the scrape of teeth, then subside. Long fingers tangle in his hair, then smooth down the back of his neck, soothing._

_Talking. His mate is talking. That seems right, but the words aren’t important. What is important is skin, all that smooth warm skin laid bare. He pushes his face against it, grips with his hands, smearing the bloody symbols painted hurriedly across chest and ribs and belly. Slides lower, mouthing at the curve of a hip, and hears an explosive breath, rising heat, the sudden sharp smell of arousal._

_Good. It’s good. There’s an angry thrumming in the back of his mind, but it’s easy to ignore now, with his mate here and close and bare beneath him._

_Fingers stutter on his skin, then still. A sigh, the quiet whisper of two syllables. His name, and then, “Okay.” The hand moves on his skin, and tense limbs relax, knees spreading to let him crawl between them. He growls low in the back of his throat and ruts against him, pressing him down, feels stuttering breath on the side of his face. “Okay. That’s— fuck, okay, Derek, if that’s what you need.”_

_His mate’s hands are on his face, heartbeat thrumming. Another soft breath, and then lips press against his and the world disappears beneath a wash of red._


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing he becomes aware of is the hot, close press of another body. Then hands on his skin, stroking idly, the rise and fall of a soft voice murmuring what he’s pretty sure is nonsense. Stiles.

He shifts, awakening a sudden host of unexpected aches, and the hands still. Stiles clears his throat, then says, “Hey, are you okay? You back with me?”

“What,” Derek rasps. “What happened?”

“Witches,” Stiles says, like it’s an explanation. He lifts his hands, shoves gently at Derek’s shoulders, and it’s only then that Derek realizes that they’re tangled together, than he’s pressing Stiles down into the stone floor, and that both of them are stark naked. He lifts himself up on his elbows, feeling his face flush at the drag of Stiles’s softening cock against his thigh. Their bellies are a mess of sweat and semen, and bloody symbols are scrawled messily across Stiles’s bare torso, a shallow cut on his palm still bleeding. A curve of angry-looking marks in the shape of teeth decorate his neck.

Derek sits back on his knees, then reaches out to trace one of the symbols. He doesn’t quite realize what he’s doing until Stiles’s eyes dart up to his face, wide and dark and startled, but he doesn’t snatch his hand back. He might not know much about human magic, but he’s pretty sure he knows what Stiles just did. “That’s not an answer.”

Stiles bats Derek’s hand away and stands up, untangles his jeans, shakes them out and pulls them on. He balls up his bloody t-shirt and uses it to clean himself off roughly, then tosses it to Derek. “We fucked.”

Derek grits his teeth. “Obviously. I thought I told you to run.”

“I’m bad at following directions. Ask anybody.” At his glare, Stiles sighs. “Look, I know you know about the bond. It’s been this big fucking elephant in the corner for, what, a year now?”

Longer than that, probably. He was drawn to Stiles almost from the very beginning, long before they were anything other than reluctant allies. That’s how mating bonds work, though. They’re a lot less about affection than they are about affinity, and he’s always had more in common with Stiles than he wanted to admit. “Something like that.”

“So I did some research. A werewolf’s mate can reach his mind, if the bond has been confirmed.” Stiles shrugs. “Seemed like it was worth a shot. And it worked, didn’t it? You’re feeling like… you? No urges to run naked into the desert or maul me to death?”

“No more than usual,” Derek sighs, and looks away when Stiles grins, sharp and startled and fucking beautiful in a way that he has no right to. He looks sore and battered, but otherwise unaffected by the warm thrumming pull Derek can feel between them, the link that makes him want to press into Stiles’s space and breathe in his scent, to touch him and kiss him and claim him.

Stiles doesn’t want that. The wolf doesn’t understand expediency, but Derek does, and he knows that Stiles doesn’t want that. Doesn’t want _him_ like that. This was just the best of several bad options. He gets that.

It doesn’t stop him from _wanting_ , but he’s used to wanting things that he can’t have. This is no different.

He uses the t-shirt to wipe himself off, looks at if for a moment, then drops it on the floor. Tries to get his feet beneath him, but his joints feel like loose hinges, his whole body weak and strange. Stiles’s arm is sliding beneath his shoulders before he has to ask for help, and he manages to stand, swaying against Stiles’s bony shoulder, his strong, wiry arm curved around Derek’s back, the scent of him filling his nose.

“Come on,” he says, his voice vibrating in Derek’s ears. “The others are waiting outside. Let’s get you out of here.”

* * *

The ride back is mostly a blur, his thoughts still scattering like dust motes at every jostle of the Jeep's bad shocks on rough terrain. He becomes aware at some point that he’s curled around Stiles in the backseat, pushing his face into the curve of his throat, and that Stiles isn’t shoving him away. Scott and his beta are up front, talking quietly. Scott’s voice is a slow, calm counterpoint to the beta’s jittery questions, but he can’t be bothered to focus on the words.

One of Stiles’s fingers scrapes experimentally at his back, and he arches into the touch for a moment before he remembers the spell painted there. He’s become so accustomed to the wolfsbane stink of the liquid that he actually forgot it was there.

“I think we’re going to have to wait until we get to Deaton’s to get this off,” Stiles says, and curls his hand around Derek’s shoulder. “Hey, relax. I’ll stop messing with it, I’m sorry.”

“That’s not,” Derek starts, then stops, too exhausted to try to come up with the words. He puts his head back against the seat. The fabric covering it is rough and worn, and it smells faintly of gasoline and strongly of Stiles. His skin feels thin and abraded in a way that he’s pretty sure has more to do with the spell and Stiles’s nearness than any lingering injury from the rockfall. The fact that he’s still naked probably doesn’t help. He’s never been particularly body-conscious, but right now he really wishes he had pants on at least. “It’s fine.”

Stiles takes a breath, hesitates, then says, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Derek says again, and closes his eyes.

* * *

At some point he must actually sleep, because the next time he’s aware of what’s going on, the Jeep is crunching on gravel as it slows, the clean dry scent of desert air exchanged for a cacophonous medley of oil and pavement and mountain ash, the gamey smell of too many animals in an enclosed space, the sharp sparking electricity of magic. The animal clinic.

“Hey,” Stiles says when the engine cuts off, his hand hovering over Derek’s shoulder, a palpable heat. “Derek, you awake?”

“Yeah,” Derek manages, and peels his eyes open. Stiles is leaning over him, looking worried. Behind him, Scott’s beta— Liam— is peering in the window.

“Is he awake?” he asks. “He’s not going to try to eat us all, is he? Because that would really suck, and I’m so not up for a battle to the death in the parking lot of Scott’s workplace.”

“He’s awake,” Stiles says impatiently. “He’s fine, he’s not going to do anything. Open the door.”

“Okay, but how do you know?” Liam asks, pulling the door open and stepping back a little too quick, like he thinks Derek might suddenly lunge at him. Like Derek has the energy for that right now. He’s pretty sure if he tried it he’d end up face-down on the pavement.

“We have a mystical bond,” Stiles says, completely deadpan, and hauls Derek out of the Jeep. He’s surprisingly strong, actually. No match for a werewolf, but he holds Derek up easily. “Now help me get him inside.”

“A mystical bond?” Liam asks, sliding under Derek’s other shoulder. Derek wants to flinch and snap at another werewolf so close, especially now when he feels raw and fragile, like he’s been fit together all wrong, but he controls the impulse. He can smell Stiles, close and warm on his other side, and that helps. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“None of your business, is what,” Stiles retorts before Derek has to come up with a response.

“They’re mates,” Scott interjects from the other side of the car. He’s leaning in to root through a bag, and he sounds completely matter-of-fact about it, which means that this isn’t new information for him in the least. Derek doesn’t gape at him, but that’s only because his face hurts too much to move.

“Mates?” Liam does gape, then leans over to peer at Stiles, so close that his breath rustles Derek’s beard. Derek contemplates biting him, decides reluctantly that he doesn’t have the energy for the inevitable freak-out that would result. “Like, _mates_ mates?”

“I said it was a mystical bond, didn’t I?” Stiles sounds annoyed. “How do you think I found him?”

“I… but, seriously? I didn’t even think you guys were friends.”

“We’re not,” Stiles says, and Derek grunts in agreement. It’s true. Whatever they are to each other, _friends_ is not the right word for it.

“They are,” Scott says, coming up with a case from his duffel bag. He makes a face. “Sort of. It’s weird. They’ve always been weird about each other.”

“This is pretty fucking weird,” Liam agrees. “What with all the bodily fluids, oh my god. They reek. Does Deaton have, like, moth balls I could stuff up my nose?”

“I am _right here,_ ” Stiles snaps, and his shoulder jostles Derek as they start to move.

“I know,” Liam says, “I can smell you, unfortunately,” and then someone jostles Derek again in a way that sends a silvery jolt of pain through his temples and he stops paying attention to the conversation.

* * *

“Well,” Deaton says, peering down at Derek. “This certainly is a new situation for me.”

“I really hope that translates into ‘yes, I know exactly what’s going on and he’s going to be okay’,” Stiles says, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. Derek can see him out of the corner of his eye, a comforting blur of twitchy motion. Scott and Liam hang back against the wall.

“Hmm,” Deaton says noncommittally, and turns to reach his his kit on the other table.

The noise Stiles makes is so comically frustrated that Derek feels himself smile against the metal table. It’s pleasantly cool under his cheek and belly, and fortunately Deaton had a spare pair of sweatpants that more or less fit Derek, because this is far from the first time a naked, injured werewolf has stumbled into the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic and Alan Deaton is both well-prepared and professionally unflappable even when he clearly has no fucking clue what’s going on.

“You have no fucking clue, do you?” Stiles asks, in an eerie echo of Derek’s thoughts.

“I _think_ ,” Deaton puts a careful emphasis on the word, “that it should be safe to wash the symbols off.”

“You think.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t know everything there is to know about spellcasting,” Deaton says mildly. “Particularly this variety. This wasn’t done by druids.”

“But it should be fine, right?” Stiles says. “I mean, it’s not going to peel his skin off or anything to get rid of them, is it?”

“Unlikely,” Deaton says, somewhat less than reassuringly, and looks over at Derek. “It’s up to you. I can look into it further if you’d prefer.”

Derek shakes his head. It probably won’t kill him, and he’s sick of the cold lassitude in his limbs, the fog in his thoughts, the way his skin crawls at the witch’s remembered touch. “No, it’s fine. You have a shower here, right?”

“Emergency shower in the bathroom attached to the office,” Deaton says, gesturing at the door. “Right through there. There should be soap and towels, but let me know if you need anything else.”

“A shirt might be a good idea,” Stiles interjects, then rubs a hand over his bare chest like he’s just remembered he’s not wearing one. The symbols are mostly gone, scrubbed off with a spare rag from the Jeep, but Derek can still smell him from across the room. “Two of them, actually. Do you _have_ to keep the temperature in here set to ‘Arctic’?”

“It helps preserve my supplies,” Deaton says. “I’ll see what I can find.”

Derek takes himself out of the room.

* * *

“So,” Deaton says, after Derek has rinsed off in the emergency shower and is wearing a shirt and feeling slightly more alive. “I suppose now we should discuss the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?” Derek asks flatly.

In the corner, Stiles fidgets, rocking back and forth on his feet, picking at the hem of the t-shirt Deaton lent him. It’s too big, hanging off his lean frame and making him look smaller and younger than he is. Scott looks between them, then reaches out to tug at Liam’s elbow. “Liam, let’s go. We need to talk to Lydia about tracking down the coven, anyway.”

“Uh, yeah, please,” Liam says, popping out of his seat and following him to the door, “I really don’t need to be present for this conversation.”

The door swings shut behind them, and they’re alone. Stiles glances at Derek, then at Deaton, then clears his throat and drops into the other chair like a ton of bricks. Cracks his knuckles and rubs his hands together, feigning bright attentiveness.

“Okay, I’m ready for the lecture. ‘This is serious business, magic is not a toy, you have no idea what you’re doing and you could have killed yourself and Derek and possibly blown up everything within twenty miles of you,’ am I right? Come on, don’t hold back on me. Get right to the good stuff.”

“I’m not going to lecture you,” Deaton says. “And I’m pretty sure that there’s no failure mode of that spell that would have blown anything up. Although if there was, I’m sure you would have found it. That was ill-considered in the extreme, and you know it.”

“I thought you weren’t going to lecture me,” Stiles mutters.

“I’m not.” Deaton glances at Derek, then back at Stiles. “It’s too late for that. Do you know what you did?”

“I have a vague idea, yeah.”

“Then you know it’s permanent,” Deaton says. Derek looks down at his hands, curls them into fists, then forces them to relax. “Do you understand what that means?”

“Why don’t you explain it to me,” Stiles says tightly.

Deaton sighs, placing his hands flat on the exam table. Finally, he says, “Mating bonds aren’t supposed to work like this. Something that should have been both gradual and mutual was torn open on one side. It won’t affect you much; you’re human. But a werewolf… that’s a different story.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. His heartbeat spikes sharply. His sneaker squeaks against the tile floor; his hands are flexing and releasing like he’s trying to grasp something in thin air. “So how’s it going to affect Derek?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Deaton turns his calm gaze on Derek. “How do you feel, Derek?”

 _Awful_ , is the honest answer. He feels raw, exposed, like something fragile and close has been dragged out and ripped to shreds. He can feel the pull of the bond between them like a too-tight rubber band; it’s actually physically painful being this far away from Stiles when everything in him wants to _touch._

But Stiles’s face looks guilty and tense, his eyes averted, his foot jittering nervously, so Derek just says, “Tired. Sore. I’ll be fine.”

“See?” Stiles’s voice cracks. “He’ll be fine.”

Deaton eyes him. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Because if it’s not something you chose, the damage could be—”

“I’m fine,” Derek interrupts. He’s not even sure why he says it— it’s obviously, _patently_ not true, and everyone here knows it— only that he can’t stand to watch the way Stiles’s expression is crumpling in slow motion, the way his hands flex and grip at his kneecaps, the misery rolling off of him in waves.

Stiles did this _for Derek_ , and he’ll find a way to be okay. He’ll have to.

“Derek,” Deaton says in a careful tone.

“Could you just,” Derek says, and closes his eyes briefly. “Could you just give us a minute? Please?”

Deaton just looks at him, then at Stiles, who’s sitting hunched over, face tilted down like watching his own feet tapping at the floor is the most fascinating activity ever, then finally sighs. “All right. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

“Thanks,” Stiles says, without looking up, and Deaton heaves another sigh and slips out of the room.

Without looking up, Stiles says, “So, are you going to rip my throat out now?”

“With my teeth,” Derek says. It gets him a faint flicker of a smile, but nothing more than that. “Look, you were trying to help— you _did_ help— and you didn’t know what you were doing. It’s okay.”

“Yeah, see, that’s the thing.” Stiles looks up at him, finally. “I did.”

“What?”

“I did know what I was doing,” Stiles says. His voice is quiet and dry. “I told you, I did some research once I figured out that mating bonds were, like, an actual thing. I talked to Deaton about it. That’s probably why he wants to kick my ass; he specifically told me to leave it alone. He said if you wanted it too, you’d—” He stops, swipes a hand over his face, but when he looks back at Derek his eyes are dry. “I’m sorry, for the record. I just, I couldn’t think of what else to do.”

“It was a stupid plan,” Derek says mildly. Stiles shrugs, lifting a hand to rub at the imprint of Derek’s teeth on the back of his neck. It’s a deep bruise, starting to scab over in places where Derek’s teeth broke the skin. If Stiles has done as much research as he says, he knows what the bite means, but his face betrays no revulsion. “You could have died. I could have torn you apart, you realize that, right?”

“Yeah, well, I was kinda banking on the idea that you didn’t actually want to kill me,” Stiles says. “And I was right, wasn’t I? You didn’t kill me. You didn’t even hurt me.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“Relatively speaking,” Stiles amends. “I’ve had worse.”

“I’d be worried about your sex life if that was the case.”

Stiles grins at that, startled and sudden. It makes some of the tightness inside Derek unwind, the tension in the bond fading to a low thrum, almost bearable. “I’m pretty sure Malia left some permanent scars. Everything you did will heal. I’m fine.”

He’s not lying. He smells like blood and dirt and sweat and semen and he’s moving like he’s pulled every muscle in his body, but he’s not lying. He is _fine_ by whatever fucked-up metric Stiles Stilinski uses to gauge damage to himself, and Derek hates that. He’s not completely clear on what happened in the dark spaces between his memories, but he remembers skin breaking beneath his claws, the sharpness of fear-sweat and a thundering pulse. He knows that it wasn’t gentle.

He knows that Stiles is hurting.

“I’m still sorry,” he says.

“Don’t— Jesus, no, it wasn’t your fault,” Stiles says, quick. “Only one of us had the capacity for informed consent there, and it sure as hell wasn’t you. I knew what I was getting into. I just, I didn’t really think through the long-term consequences. For you. I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” Derek says. Stiles's hands are twisting together in the space between his knees. Derek just watches him for several moments. He knows Stiles touched him before, but he can’t remember much of it, which is too bad. Stiles has beautiful hands, strong and elegant. He’d be good at it, in a situation that wasn’t fueled by adrenaline and panic. And maybe, just maybe— “You said ‘too’,” he says, eventually.

Stiles lifts his head. “What?”

“You said,” Derek repeats, pushing himself up to cross the room between them with shaky steps and drop into the chair next to Stiles. “You said, ‘if I wanted it _too._ ’”

Stiles breathes in sharply, then looks away, a sudden flush staining his cheeks. His scent takes on a sour edge of shame. “Shit,” he whispers, mostly to himself, and then, “It’s not— it wasn’t about that, I promise. Trust me, I know how fucked-up that situation already was, I wouldn’t—”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Derek says gently. His chest feels light, like something warm is expanding inside him, pushing all the leaden coldness out. “But you do want this. You want the bond.”

 _You want me_ , he can’t quite make himself say.

“I mean, yeah.” Stiles’s mouth quirks a little, self-deprecating. “Obviously. But you don’t, so we’ll figure out some way to deal with this that doesn’t involve—”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts. He reaches out to touch Stiles’s cheek, and Stiles turns to face him, his lips parted, his brown eyes wide, a blush still showing high in his cheeks, and rather than try to stumble through an explanation, Derek takes the expeditious route and kisses him instead.

It’s soft and dry, closed-mouthed and painfully gentle, nothing like the rough, frantic _need_ that he only half-remembers from earlier. Stiles’s fingers are resting on his cheek when they break apart; his expression, when Derek pulls back enough to look at it, is stunned.

“Oh,” he says softly.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “Oh.”

“So you do…”

He sighs and leans until he’s pressed against Stiles, thigh to hip to shoulder, and pushes his face into his neck to breathe in the smell of him. He laps at the bite mark, apologetic, and feels Stiles suck in a shaky breath before relaxing completely, like the closeness soothes something in him, too. “You’re an idiot,” Derek murmurs finally, without lifting his head.

“Yeah, I’m kinda getting that.” Stiles loops an arm around his shoulders and drags him closer. His heartbeat is tripping quick, bright and startled and happy. “I’m feeling surprisingly okay about it, though.”

Derek smiles against the curve of his throat, curling his fingers into the skin-warm fabric of his t-shirt, pressing close. “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr!](http://glorious-spoon.tumblr.com/)


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